Street Market Report - March 17th, 2013

It was clear and sunny the whole day. This, combined with the fact that it was the weekend before welfare, created a crowded but controlled market. Due to the crushing welfare cycle, most of the vendors are desperate on the weekend before, and thus the whole market is a buyers market. This switches to a sellers market the week after. 

Fund Raising Report

1) 50/50 Raffle: $65.35

2) Table/Tents: $66.00 (always goes down on sunny days)

3) Coffee/Juice: $57.00

Total = $188.35

This is not a great total, but it is 3 times what we made last year at this time. Now that we are starting to have annualized comparison data, we can try and get a better estimate of our annual revenues, as well as maximizing this hard fought supplement that is now providing our entire capital equipment budget. 

Significant spending includes: $65 labour supplement to initiate the specialized tent crew, $40 for a new industrial coffee maker, and the standard $18.66 for cream and sugar for the coffee sales. 

Total in petty cash now: $1,107.21

Vendor Count

178 Vendors @ 1pm

General Report

Only four tents in the park this week, but we had 8 tents in the street. Two vendors that normally rent tents in the park did not show up, so we took the opportunity to fill the street to see what it looked like. 

The tent crew worked very well. This was the first day that we had a crew of 4 that came in just for the hour between 10:15am and 11:15am to set up the tents, and then returned at 4:15 to 5:15 to take the tents down. We now have the capacity to put up about 25 or 30 tents within an hour. This would dramatically improve the look and orderliness of the market. We just need the equipment budget. 

Last Wednesday, we sent a delegation to City Council to support the recommended $30k core funding out of the direct social services grants. We were approved (woooohooo). This is great, however, we still need to fund raise for: 1) Vendor meetings, 2) Tents and Tables, 3) Committee Meetings, 4) Coordinator Salary, 5) Non-profit creation, and anything else. The $30k now pays for the base stipends for volunteers for basic market operations over the next 52 weeks. Thanks to Debbie Anderson Eng for meeting with us, and seeing how hard we are working to turn the market around. 

Major incident was a visit by the police early in the morning. One of our vendors had their entire table confiscated and then left for the day. We did not interfere. We assume that they felt that the merchandise was stolen. 

There were a few arguments throughout the day, but nothing notable. Everyone was on edge in the morning due to it being so close to welfare day. We had a visit from an band Irish walking back from the parade.

Vendor of the week is featured in this happy photo below, showing off his new pillows.

Happy St. Patrick's Day